Fun with research and weapons!

For discussion of Dunedain culture, what it might have looked like and how it worked.

Moderators: caedmon, Greg

User avatar
Udwin
Vendor
Posts: 794
Joined: Mon Apr 01, 2013 11:00 pm
Location: central Kain-tuc-kee
Contact:

Fun with research and weapons!

Post by Udwin »

A while back, I was struck by a moment of —as the French say—‘staircase wit’, as I lamented the fact that I did not mention my activities in this adventurous lifestyle on the ‘Tell us some interesting things about yourself’ questionnaire one submits when entering the contestant pool to appear Jeopardy! (I’m still in the pool, but they haven’t called yet).
Basically, it was a matter of semantics—I wasn’t quite sure exactly how to describe what I do with regards to Tolkien’s writings. I’m wary of the word ‘reenactment’, as to most Normals it brings to mind Civil War fellows drinking s’mores schnapps.
The term ‘living history’ is also troublesome, as Middle-earth is not—strictly speaking—what most people would consider ‘history’, but rather mythic prehistory.
That said, I think I’ve become quite fond of the word Reconstruction, in that it allows for a certain amount of play, yet still works in the framework of the academic methods used by Primary-Sources-Living-History.
Anyway, as in all parts of life, it is especially valuable when reconstructing such a setting to be mindful.
Specifically, before one can start making/acquiring kit items for a given persona, one must first be able to clearly imagine or visualize that persona and its material trappings.
And before one can visualize material items, one must be able to place said items in the context of the time and culture from which they come (artifacts never exist in a vacuum).
And in order to understand a given society at a given time, one must! do! research!

In other words, as one of our orc-focused Eastern European compatriots said (roughly translated) “Fantasy is a beautiful thing, but if you do not want to look like a cartoon figure that fell out of a computer monitor, it is important to give the history and material culture a little study.”

Luckily, researching pseudo-historical Middle-earth is much easier than researching real-historical Regular-Earth: there are simply far, far less Primary Documents to search through (this is probably the number one non-political reason why I focus a majority of my energy in this hobby on Tolkien). If I want to know something about a topic on the 18th century Ohio frontier, I barely know where to get started…but it probably involves microfilm. But if I want to search through Tolkien’s writings, I load up tolkiengateway.net and a folder containing my digital copies of the Sil, Hobbit, LotR, Unfinished Tales, Letters, and History of M-e Volumes 1-12 (the only major source I don’t have digitally is History of the Hobbit, and thankfully my analog copy includes the very comprehensive index to both volumes Mr. Rateliff was kind enough to include.) Deft use of the ctrl-F function lets me sift through these documents and very soon I likely have found what I was looking for!
User avatar
Udwin
Vendor
Posts: 794
Joined: Mon Apr 01, 2013 11:00 pm
Location: central Kain-tuc-kee
Contact:

Re: Fun with research and weapons! pt 2

Post by Udwin »

Anyhow. All that is simply to say that in continuing to develop my image of late Third Age Anduin Vale Mannish society, I have reached the point where I finally have to decide about weaponry.

There are a handful of references that allow us to conclusively connect several weapons with this time and place. First of these are the “great bows of yew” (TH 110) known by the Eagles to be used by Men of the Anduin; likewise, Bard also “shot with a great yew bow” to slay Smaug.
Thranduil’s folk were known to use bows which were said to be shorter than those of Lothlorien. Similarly, I imagine the bows given by Beorn to Thorin & Company were likely of smaller size, or else they would be little use to the dwarves!
As a free Woodsman, my archery gear consists of my osage longbow with a small quiver (woven hazel, hopefully) for ‘at-home’ or defense scenarios, or my shorter hickory flatbow with my large leather stalking quiver for ‘hunting in Mirkwood’ scenarios.

As far as edged weapons go, there are axes in the armory of Erebor (Beorn also had a “large” one (118), several mentions of “spearmen” in the forces of both Laketown and the Elvenking, and we know Dain’s force at the Battle of the Five Armies bore “heavy two-handed mattocks” and “short broad [swords]”.

In taking a rooted-in-history approach, I’m also aware of military realities of the actual past. And in portraying a common Man, I’m aware that there is no weapon more befitting of a commoner than the Spear.

So, the question then becomes, what kind of spear should a Man in this time/place wield?
And the follow-up question is, what would it have been made of?
We will attempt to answer the latter question first, and to do this we must know what our options are—or, what materials were known to Middle-earth at this time?
User avatar
Udwin
Vendor
Posts: 794
Joined: Mon Apr 01, 2013 11:00 pm
Location: central Kain-tuc-kee
Contact:

Re: Fun with research and weapons! pt 3

Post by Udwin »

Through regular-Earth history, the typical pattern of succession of materials for tools and weapons seems to be wood>stone>copper>bronze>iron>steel, often with significant overlap between each.
All of these were known in Middle-earth from at least the First Age—witness Gondolin’s seven gates—and of course there are the famous Numenorean hollow steel longbows which were known in Gondor (and carried north to the Disaster of the Gladden Fields (UT) at the dawn of the Third Age.
However, some may be surprised to learn that (in Eriador at least) a Bronze Age of sorts may have persisted as late as the first half of the Third Age, as evidenced by Tom Bombadil’s account of the breakup of Arnor:
“Kings of little kingdoms fought together, and the young Sun shone like fire on the red metal of their new and greedy swords” (LR, Book I Ch 7).
Appendix B dates the death of Eärendur—which began the division of the north-kingdom—as TA 861. Additionally, it was during Angmar’s campaign against the remnants of Arnor in TA 1409 that the ‘last prince’ of Cardolan was killed and interred in a barrow of Tyrn Gorthad—the same barrow in which the Four Travelers were later briefly captured over 1600 years later—apparently along with a significant amount of treasure.
It is quite telling that the “great load of treasure” which Bombadil brought out of this barrow contained “things of gold, silver, copper, and bronze” but no mention of iron (LR, Book I Chapter Eight).
Key to this discussion is the subsequent bestowing by Bombadil of the four barrow-blades to the hobbits. If we remember,
"For each of the hobbits he chose a dagger, long, leaf-shaped, and keen, of marvelous workmanship, damasked with serpent-forms in red and gold. They gleamed as he drew them from their black sheaths, wrought of some strange metal, light and strong, and set with many fiery stones. Whether by some virtue in these sheaths or because of the spell that lay on the mound, the blades seemed untouched by time, unrusted, sharp, glittering in the sun…”
In the sixth volume of The History of Middle-earth which corresponds with the Barrow-downs episode (Section I, Ch VII 'The Barrow-wight'), C. Tolkien writes that
“…nothing more is said of the bronze swords that Tom Bombadil chose for the hobbits from the treasures of the mound than the words added to the original text: Tom said that ‘they were made many ages ago by men out of the West: they were foes of the dark Lord.’”
Bombadil’s claim that the swords were made “many ages ago” can be chalked up to historical embellishment for the hobbits’ sake, as the weapons could only have been made during the fourteenth century TA (Angmar was not an entity until its foundation in 1300 TA, and as we’ve covered above, the last prince was laid to rest only 109 years later). More concrete evidence is provided following the destruction of Meriadoc’s Barrow-blade after the death of the Witch-King:
“So passed the sword of the Barrow-downs, work of Westernesse. But glad would he have been to know its fate who wrought it slowly long ago in the North-kingdom when the Dúnedain were young, and chief among their foes was the dread realm of Angmar and its sorcerer king.”
What’s more, in the following volume (HoME Vol 7 Section I, Note 16), the continuity-minded Tolkien appears to have asked himself: “What happened to the red sword[s] of the Barrows? In Frodo's case it is broken at the Ford and he has Sting.' … they were 'bronze swords, short, leaf-shaped and keen'…”

Therefore, despite his broad-strokes description, it would seem that Tolkien’s Barrow-blades match up quite nicely with the style of leaf-bladed bronze shortswords typical of the Bronze Age of northwestern Europe, in which case, it is almost humorous that he chooses to describe the blades as “unrusted”, as of course, bronze only develops verdigris instead of rusting as iron does! Clearly, a virtue or spell is nonetheless still upon the blades, keeping them from developing the patina and remaining sharp.
Image

So! While I found it simply fascinating to learn that bronze was used during the middle of the Third Age in Eriador, I am, however, more interested in the lands east of the Misty Mountains. What do we know of metallurgy in these parts?
Alas, when Thorin & Company rested at Beorn’s farmstead, it seems that “…Beorn did not appear to care for [gold, silver, jewels, and smith-craft]: there were no things of gold or silver in his hall, and few save the knives were made of metal at all.” (TH 126).
Ack!, it is so very unfortunate for the purposes of this exploration that our narrator does not tell us what kind of metal the knives were made of! While I had previously thought bronze would be a very good fit for Beorn’s homestead’s Bronze Age aesthetic (the straw yellow of the metal would fit in so well with all the brown wool, redware pottery, wood construction, and firelight!), but I pulled back and decided it would be best for now to keep bronze in Eriador (where we know and can document it existed!). So I looked at my map and looked at Wilderland, and realized the answer was staring me in the face. Because what geographic feature lies in the northeast of this region? The IRON HILLS, of course!

As in my previous exploration of the possible trade of pipe-weed through Wilderland, the dwarves are yet again the key! Closely located as my persona is to the old dwarf road through Mirkwood (linking the Anduin valley to the Laketown/Dale/Erebor/Iron Hills cultural sphere), I don’t think it at all improbable that dwarvish smiths or ironmongers would be able to bring either raw iron ore or smelted pig-iron westwards through the various villages of western Rhovanion (after the fall of Erebor, Durin’s Folk were said to “travel about as metal-workers” (HoME Vol. 12, Section 1, Chapter IX, § iv)).
Depending on the mineral richness of the Blue Mountains in the west (I have yet to find a source explaining what exactly the dwarves were mining there) it is even possible that this high-quality dwarvish Iron Hills iron may even have been traded all the way to Eriador.

And so, I have settled on a decision that seems to cover most of my bases quite nicely. In the spirit of Tolkien’s historical fluidity, I (with my blacksmith father’s help) plan to replicate a simple, historically-known bronze spearhead design in iron or, more likely, mild steel!
Specifically, one of the type of early Bronze Age spearheads found at Arreton Downs in the UK:
(one of John Mainwaring’s superb copies seen here:)
Attachments
arreton Mainwaring DSC00306merf.jpg
arreton Mainwaring DSC00306merf.jpg (79.02 KiB) Viewed 19328 times
Personae: Aistan son of Ansteig, common Beorning of Wilderland; Tungo Brandybuck, Eastfarthing Bounder, 3018 TA; a native Man of the Greyflood, c.850 SA
User avatar
Elleth
êphal ki-*raznahê
Posts: 2932
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2010 5:26 am
Location: in the Angle; New England

Re: Fun with research and weapons!

Post by Elleth »

That makes a lot of sense!

I'm really impressed with the rigor you're using - it's inspiring!
I confess to mostly sticking with "Anglo-Saxon era Britain, unless otherwise documented" as a visual template, since it seems where the professor's head was most of the time. Your approach certainly looks promising!

.. I'm surprised at the thought of bronze arms so late though. I mean, it ties in well with Tolkien's idea of a "pre-history" - but at a gut level it feels wrong. On the other hand, to someone who grew up with pop art 1920 ideas of Robin Hood or Greco-Romans, the real thing would also look odd. So could be.

Elves had iron/steel in the Silmarillion, did they not? Or am I misremembering?


(I like the mild steel approach! I'd love to find someone making regular belt knifes in the old "piece of steel inserted in iron" method. I'd think for a smith it would be easier pounding/work - but perhaps too much bother compared with grinding down an off the shelf blank)

(edited for stupid word choice)
Last edited by Elleth on Mon May 19, 2014 7:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Persona: Aerlinneth, Dúnedain of Amon Lendel c. TA 3010.
User avatar
Elleth
êphal ki-*raznahê
Posts: 2932
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2010 5:26 am
Location: in the Angle; New England

Re: Fun with research and weapons!

Post by Elleth »

wait.... "Angmar" - isn't "Ang" Sindarin for "iron?"

Also wondering if there might be something of a "post apocolypse" thing going on with the choice of bronze - falling back on older technology when war tears up trade networks and such. Darn, it's been years since I deeply knew my ME history - thanks so much for bringing it up!
Persona: Aerlinneth, Dúnedain of Amon Lendel c. TA 3010.
User avatar
Mirimaran
Thangailhir
Posts: 2110
Joined: Tue Jul 01, 2008 5:38 pm
Location: North Carolina
Contact:

Re: Fun with research and weapons!

Post by Mirimaran »

But can you damask bronze? I think the description of the damasking on the blades in red and gold serpent forms corrolate to pattern welding, and the language of such to Anglo-saxon imagery.

Ken
"Well, what are you waiting for? I am an old man, and have no time for your falter! Come at me, if you will, for I do not sing songs of dastards!"
User avatar
Mirimaran
Thangailhir
Posts: 2110
Joined: Tue Jul 01, 2008 5:38 pm
Location: North Carolina
Contact:

Re: Fun with research and weapons!

Post by Mirimaran »

Fascinating topic, btw! :)

Ken
"Well, what are you waiting for? I am an old man, and have no time for your falter! Come at me, if you will, for I do not sing songs of dastards!"
Straelbora
Haeropada
Posts: 937
Joined: Mon Feb 11, 2013 7:00 pm
Location: Indianapolis, IN USA

Re: Fun with research and weapons!

Post by Straelbora »

Elleth wrote:wait.... "Angmar" - isn't "Ang" Sindarin for "iron?"

Also wondering if there might be something of a "post apocolypse" thing going on with the choice of bronze - falling back on older technology when war tears up trade networks and such. Darn, it's been years since I deeply knew my ME history - thanks so much for bringing it up!
First, what a great, well-thought thread!

As to a 'post-apocalyptic' fall back, I think that works in many ways.
Vápnum sínum skala maðr velli á
feti ganga framar því at óvist er at vita
nær verðr á vegum úti geirs um þörf guma
Hávamál
User avatar
Udwin
Vendor
Posts: 794
Joined: Mon Apr 01, 2013 11:00 pm
Location: central Kain-tuc-kee
Contact:

Re: Fun with research and weapons!

Post by Udwin »

Elleth wrote:wait.... "Angmar" - isn't "Ang" Sindarin for "iron?"
Yes! Angmar is 'iron-home' in Sindarin. It would stand to reason that it was endowed with ferrous ores, which would certainly give it an edge (ohh bad pun!) over the Arnorian remnants as they seem to still have been using bronze weapons! I never considered it before but it could certainly explain the defeat of Rhudaur and Cardolan in 109 years. Arthedain (formerly the core of Arnor) seems to have been able to put up the best defense--possibly simply by merit of its population?--holding out against Angmar for almost 700 years. But note that Angmar is not defeated until the arrival of Elvish and Gondorian forces under Eärnur--perhaps they retained more of the Numenorean mastery of iron and steel?
Mirimaran wrote:But can you damask bronze? I think the description of the damasking on the blades in red and gold serpent forms corrolate to pattern welding, and the language of such to Anglo-saxon imagery.
Sort of. Since bronze is cast and not forged like ferrous metals, you can't 'fold' it to get layered effects like Damascus, but many bronze swords and daggers were decorated by engraving (for lack of a better word)--patterns could be hammered onto the blade with a hardened piece of bronze. Here's a pretty conservative example by Jeroen Zuiderwijk, but I think it would be perfectly conceivable in a Middle-earth context for the same technique to be used to achieve a 'serpent form' motif along the lines of the PJ version of Sting (at least that's how my mind's eye pictures the Barrow blades)
Image
Personae: Aistan son of Ansteig, common Beorning of Wilderland; Tungo Brandybuck, Eastfarthing Bounder, 3018 TA; a native Man of the Greyflood, c.850 SA
User avatar
caedmon
Balku'npâ
Posts: 962
Joined: Sat Feb 16, 2008 4:30 am
Location: Palmer Alaska

Re: Fun with research and weapons!

Post by caedmon »

Please forgive the lack of citation.


I have a hard time thinking that post Numenor Dunedain lost the knowledge of iron.

I thought the Barrow Downs were originally tombs of the Edain in the First Age, only to be reused by the Dunedain after the drowning of Numenor. Could it not be that the grave goods were of First rather than Third Age provenance?
-Jack Horner

----------------------------
Impression: Cædmon Reedmace | bronze founder living in Archet, Breeland. c. 3017
User avatar
ineffableone
Silent Watcher over the Peaceful Lands
Posts: 287
Joined: Mon May 05, 2014 9:29 pm
Location: Back in the Pac Northwet

Re: Fun with research and weapons!

Post by ineffableone »

Just a little point here, damascus steel is not the same thing as pattern welded steel even though many people use damascus when they mean pattern welded.

The art of damascus steel has been lost, while there are many attempting to reproduce it the art still has yet to be rediscovered. Though there is some progress, and they think the reason for so much failure in reproducing comes from another lost steel art, wootz steel. The theory is wootz was the primary ingredient in damascus, and when wootz disappeared so did damascus. Wootz is a crucible steel, getting it's patterning from the formation of crystals in the steel as it cools in the crucible. It is likely that this was then pattern welded into what is called damascus steel in ancient times. Not to be confused with what is now called damascus. There was likely a lot more than pattern welding wootz steel though.

Good news is there have been a lot of progress in rediscovering wootz, and some blooms of wootz like crucible steel has been made. Though the process tends to be a bit iffy and not always work out right. But if wootz gets to a point of being reliably created it will give the damascus folks the raw material they need to progress in relearning how that was made.

As for the idea of loosing tech and ability to craft iron weapons in post apocalypic aftermath. It is possible. In fact our current culture is quite likely to loose our abilities if we fall too far and for too long. All the easy deposits have been unearthed, all easy energy sources already gone. If our current western civ falls and does not get back up quickly, we might slide all the way back into stone age after enough generations slowly loose knowledge.

The biggest cause historically of the loss of tech is guilds and hiding knowledge from others. Keeping the knowledge secret of how to product glass for example caused many cultures to loose it. In Egypt during king Tut's time glass was worth more than gold. At his time they had lost the art of glass making.

As I mentioned above the art of wootz steel was lost, and we are just now starting to get it back even with all our modern tech to help us. Due to the loss of wootz we also lost damascus steel. You can see how loosing one tech can cause you to loose other tech. Enough foundation knowledge is lost people can loose a lot of ability they once had.
Image
User avatar
Udwin
Vendor
Posts: 794
Joined: Mon Apr 01, 2013 11:00 pm
Location: central Kain-tuc-kee
Contact:

Re: Fun with research and weapons!

Post by Udwin »

caedmon wrote:Please forgive the lack of citation.
I have a hard time thinking that post Numenor Dunedain lost the knowledge of iron.
I thought the Barrow Downs were originally tombs of the Edain in the First Age, only to be reused by the Dunedain after the drowning of Numenor. Could it not be that the grave goods were of First rather than Third Age provenance?
I know, it does seem very inconsistent with our usual impression of the Realms in Exile. And you are right about the mounds, they do date originally to the FA:
"It is said that the mounds of Tyrn Gorthad, as the Barrowdowns were called of old, are very ancient, and that many were built in the days of the old world of the First Age by the forefathers of the Edain... Those hills were therefore revered by the Dunedain after their return; and there many of their lords and Kings were buried. [Some say that the mound in which the Ring-bearer was imprisoned had been the grave of the last prince of Cardolan, who fell in the war of 1409.]" (LR, Appendix A, Part I, iii: Eriador, Arnor, and the heirs of Isildur.)
I think Elleth is on the right track with the idea of bronze being a 'fallback' choice of metal following the fragmentation of Arnor. The fact remains that after 861, we aren't dealing with Arnor at its height but instead in-fighting between competing chieftains.
The passage following the death of the Witch-King reveals the history of Merry's sword (which was stated by Tolkien to have been bronze) and dates its forging to the period of the conflict with Angmar during which the last prince was slain (1300-1409TA). While it's entirely possible the "treasure" Bombadil brings out into the sun dated to the First Age, the swords given to the hobbits (or at the very least, Merry's) are conclusively mid-Third Age, during which time bronze seems to have been a common material for swords.
The question is--did this mid-Third Age Bronze Age in Eriador follow--as we would expect, given what we know of the technological prowess of the Numenoreans and their kingdoms--an earlier Iron Age? It seems likely, but could Arnor's breakup following the death of Eärendur be such a disaster to shake the culture of Eriador to its core (breaking both trade networks and the chain of knowledge--did their libraries burn down?), causing smiths to abandon iron and return to the use of bronze?
Personae: Aistan son of Ansteig, common Beorning of Wilderland; Tungo Brandybuck, Eastfarthing Bounder, 3018 TA; a native Man of the Greyflood, c.850 SA
User avatar
Eledhwen
Thangailhir
Posts: 1346
Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2008 10:09 pm
Location: Nandaromar, Rhovanion
Contact:

Re: Fun with research and weapons!

Post by Eledhwen »

Or it could have been bronze simply because it was deemed better at holding the ruin of its enemies...spells wound around it, forged into it..than iron. Bronze makes good weapons and since it is an alloy of tin and copper, has a good capacity for 'enchantment'. Merrys' sword made a wound more bitter than any other as it unknit the Witch Kings' spell bindings. I think it was intended for that...as were the others.

Bronze and Iron coexisted historically...although people who ran into iron weapons tended to convert from bronze after the experience, and the Romans knew steel right enough, but still used iron alongside it. It isn't an all or nothing circumstance.

Given the internecine warfare going on, the general reduction in technological know-how, and the impermanence of settlements, as well as the estrangement of races, it is really no surprise that bronze is revisited. Not to me at any rate.

FWIW

Eledhwen
Nandalad!
User avatar
Greg
Urush bithî 'nKi ya-nam bawâb
Posts: 4496
Joined: Tue Dec 02, 2008 8:50 pm
Location: Eriador; Central Indiana

Re: Fun with research and weapons!

Post by Greg »

Hooooo-eee!

What a thread!

*cracks knuckles*

Bronze appearing doesn't surprise me persay, though I certainly wouldn't have guessed at it on my own. The "damasked" line intrigues me, in much the way ken questioned it. I could see engraving being the culprit, as you say, but I also see capacity for an inlay. The blades themselves could be bronze just as much as they could be iron/steel into which a shaped, serpentine recess was cut, and copper or bronze poured to provide this decoration. That might give heed to the professor's saying that they had no rust upon them, allowing us to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he knows that bronze can't rust, and so wouldn't brag about the swords' success at avoiding damage when the metal wouldn't be susceptible to it anyway; in short, the blades being or iron/steel make, with a copper or bronze inlay.

What a great discussion, and some great references. I dearly wish I had some digital copies of the works...page-turn digging is such a laborious process.
Now the sword shall come from under the cloak.
User avatar
caedmon
Balku'npâ
Posts: 962
Joined: Sat Feb 16, 2008 4:30 am
Location: Palmer Alaska

Re: Fun with research and weapons!

Post by caedmon »

I have spent a long time looking for a 14th c. bronze baselard that a friend swore he saw. But they aren't in the archeological record. I am forced to conclude that once a culture goes to iron for edged weapons, they don't go back. Impact weapons are another story, there are plenty of Bronze mace heads from the high middle ages but no knives or swords. (p.s. I prefer bronze and would love to be proven wrong!)

Now as to losing technology, there are a few things to look at. Are we talking about a small set of technologies, or a large set? If we are talking about large set I would posit that it is a shorter jump from star-faring tech to paleolithic than from iron age to neolithic or bronze. The reason is that previous ages of the world are not truly less technically proficient than their successors. They are proficient in different things. This is why most modern people would die of exposure or starvation in a setting where their ancestors would thrive.
-Jack Horner

----------------------------
Impression: Cædmon Reedmace | bronze founder living in Archet, Breeland. c. 3017
Post Reply